The Serpent Inside (A Karmagisa Fanfiction)

24: Lies

Day after day, over three weeks had passed since Nagisa convinced Karasuma to wipe Karma's mind.

Day after day, all Nagisa could hear were a total of four loving words.

'I love you, Blueberry.'    

Damn, he couldn't even look at either blueberries or strawberries without tearing up.

Nagisa slapped himself lightly to bring him out of his spiral of thoughts.

Playing music loudly to drown out the words ever repeating in his mind, he went back to doing his homework and writing endless assassination plans.

Reading over them he saw so many opportunities within them to end up as a causality himself. Nagisa sighed as he crumpled up another paper and threw it into the trash bin. He wasn't consciously suicidal, depressed, yes, but suicidal, no. Guess it was slightly unconscious. But as long as Karma was safe, Nagisa was happy.

Kayano and Nakamura, however, were definitely  not happy. Nagisa had been shutting them out, keeping to himself. The first week they let it slide, but after the second passed they got worried, and now that it had been three weeks and they hadn't seen a real smile come from the boy the considered their brother, they were more than worried. There wasn't a word to do justice to how broken they felt, but they pushed on that far, they could last one more week.

Assassination training was the only school subject that changed for Nagisa. Each day he acted weaker and weaker, pretending that his best subject was really his worst. Any time he sparred with anyone, he never allowed himself a single hit when he normally could have had people on the ground with a knife to their neck in seconds.

Even during the classes Karma skipped Nagisa kept up the act, claiming that "Karma watches from the forest sometimes." Nakamura knew that was true, she'd been dragged along skipping once as her induction to the short list of Akabane Karma's friends.

The whole class felt as if the sun had stopped shining when Nagisa stopped smiling. He was too dense to realize it, but he was the heart and soul of the class. Take away the happiness of the heart, take away the happiness of the class. Even Karma, the one who didn't know anything, wasn't as playful as he had been.

In fact, he was acting like a different person entirely.

Kayano looked over to Karma.

'Nagisa really impacted Karma-kun for the best, didn't he?' She smiled to herself before looking away.

"Thinking about Karma-kun?" Nakamura whispered. Kayano nodded.

"He's acting so different, more than you'd expect the loss of one person to change someone."

"That's Nagisa for you, turning cold-hearted meanies into happy-go-lucky princesses dancing in the fields of flowers." Nakamura joked, earning a quiet laugh.

"I wonder what we'd act like if we never knew him."

"We wouldn't be Nakamura Rio and Kayano Kaede that's for sure."

Kayano nodded in agreement before going back to what she had been doing.

When lunch finally came, Nagisa went into the forest like usual, but when he didn't come back people got worried.

"Where's Nagisa-kun?" Korosensei asked as he entered the class.

"He's not back from lunch yet, he should be back soon." Kayano informed. Korosensei nodded and began the lesson.

At the end of the period, Nagisa still hadn't made it.

"Has anyone seen Nagisa-kun?" Irina asked as she entered the classroom.

"He's not back?"

"No, he's not."

The class jumped up and ran into the forest, taking the path but coming up empty.

A voice cut through the minds of the students and teachers.

"He eats on a tree a little ways off the path by the large rock."

The class ran to the rock and turned, running a ways away from the path to see a speck of blue covered in leaves.

"NAGISA!"

Around him was a pool of red.

The class gasped.

"Get him to the infirmary!"

A few hours later

Nagisa groaned and opened his eyes, squinting as light hit his tired retina.

"You're awake!" Kayano exclaimed, hugging the bluenette.

"We saw you in the forest, it looked like you fell out of the tree you were eating in." Kataoka explained.  Nagisa looked around the room to see Irina, Karasuma, Nakamura, Sugino, Kataoka, and finally Isogai.

Nagisa laughed falsely.

"Yeah, silly me."

"Stop lying you idiot."

All eyes turned to the new voice in the room.

"You did that to yourself, like you used to."